If You’re Into Rashes, Recalled Fitbit Force Goes For About $200 On eBay

Since we broke the story of the Fitbit Force personal motion tracker causing contact dermatitis in some users, the company has begun its own recall of the devices and told authorized retailers to stop selling them. The problem is that hot gadgets are always available through unofficial channels as well. Like eBay, where you can still buy the Force, and it’s selling for a premium.

Maybe the people purchasing these wristbands are building collections of brilliant but recalled technology. Maybe they’re rash fetishists. Or maybe they’re people who want this gadget, yet have heard nothing about the recall yet.

A representative for Fitbit says that they don’t want this to happen, and the device shouldn’t be available for sale at all. “I have personally flagged a few of the Force listings on eBay and forwarded the search results page to our sales and partnerships teams so that they can take any necessary steps to prevent the sale of those items,” said one moderator and company spokesperson on the user forums (login required).

We contacted eBay about this to find out whether items under manufacturer recall only are allowed to be sold, and will update this post when we find out. The problem is that a manufacturer recall is very rare: companies usually work with the CPSC to get potentially dangerous items out of stores and consumers’ homes.

Even if the company does find and flag listings, very short-term auctions and Buy it Now listings mean that customers might nab the devices before anyone sees that they’re listed.

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Come on. I kind of wanted one, but I probably wouldn’t have paid full retail, so I’m damn sure not paying almost twice that. My first thought was damn, maybe I should have tried one, I could have gotten a full refund if I didn’t like it! But my next thought was that maybe they’ll hurry up and come out with the next model, and it will be waterproof and have a heart monitor (the two things most Force users seem to wish it had).